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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

I know I have catch up! My roommate is using the TV tonight so I will watch the episode that (it's 11:28PM as I'm typing this Tuesday night, so the episode is almost done) is happening now tomorrow and for now catch up with recapping The Best and Funniest Show Ever.

Episode 5: Jenna Lives

So in this episode Jenna starts noticing this weirdo dude wearing shirts around school saying "Jenna Lives." She is convinced that this is preventing Mattie from wanting to be with her publicly, as it's reminding people that she is alive, and once allegedly tried to commit suicide. Meanwhile, she keeps seeing Mattie with this girl who sort of looks like her, but who is way more glam. "Jenna Plus." This drives her insane, and she assaults the Jenna Lives dude and ends up in detention.

Detention happens to be with none other than Jenna Plus, who happens to be a detention freedom fighter, and sexual-tension plot device Jake. Jenna is forced to admit that she likes alternate universe version of herself, even if this Jenna Plus is Mattie's public significant other. Then while trying to communicate her boy issues anonymously to Jake, he interprets Jenna's strife as being about him and surprise-tonsil hockeys her. What!?!?!

The next day Jenna and Jenna Plus reunitepost-detention with Mattie, and it turns out that Jenna Plus is actually Mattie's brother's on and off-again GF. Saved!

Jenna, feeling the crazy wave leave the shores of her mental stability, finds the Jenna Lives dude and apologizes for accusing him of being obsessed with her. But as she walks away we can see he has pics of her all up in his locker!!!!!

Episode 6: Queen Bee-atches

Jenna's mom wants to join The Knickknackers, an elite rich-mom charity group that's kind of like a sorority for moms. Unfortunately for Jenna, the mixer for potential members (pledges) is at... Sadie Saxton's house. This obviously doesn't bode well for Jenna, so she and Tamara escape upstairs to look at Satan's (Sadie's) bedroom.

Jenna: "What are you doing??"

Tamara: "I'm going to pee on her bed!"

Jenna: "What? You can't!"

Tamara: "You're right. It'll leave DNA."

Instead of peeing on her bed, Tamara discovers Sadie's journal, and Jenna makes off with it when they almost get caught by Lissa, who is too dumb to know what is happening. And the journal in question turns out to be Sadie's food journal.

Armed with potentially damaging information, Jenna feels conflicted, because she isn't actually evil. But Sadie is, and, not knowing that Jenna has her journal, continues her usual anti-Jenna crusade with a little more oomph after she has this really sort of touching breakdown at home about her weight and wanting to feel free in front of her mom, and her mom advises her to talk to "that girl Jenna" (who she met at the party) because "she has a lovely figure." (Oh, shit!)

But when Sadie passes on false info about Knickknackers pledging stuff to Jenna to sabotage her and her mother's chances (and when Jenna reads that Sadie wrote she was "an oozing skitch") (god, I love the vocab in this show), Jenna reveals to Sadie that she is not to be played with. She will return the journal when her mom gets a rich-lady-club bid. Jenna finally gets to exert some power over Sadie, but in a pretty kind way. I mean... blackmail is not kind, but this is the internet age, and she had the ability to do some real psychological damage. And she chose not to. That's a life lesson kids. Oh, girl world.

Also in this episode, Jake feels awks about Jenna, and in a panic, reveals that he kissed her to his BFF, Mattie. Mattie, BTW, has not even told Jake about his clandestine affair with Jenna. So this creates a little awkwardness. But you know... that's what this show is about.

Was that what happened when they pulled you aside during health class in middle school and us ladies watched the menstruation cartoon?

Was this part of Driver's Ed that I have forgotten?

Does yelling "SLUTS!" at me and my friends when we, who happened to be dressed conservatively not just for a club but for life in general, walk home from Silk City make you feel good? What exactly about the following exchange I was just a party to while waiting for your gas-guzzling, environment-destroyer to chug through the intersection at a stop light is so compelling to express?

So I moved and then did not have internet in my apartment for awhile... but now I do so I should be posting much more regularly. I realize that I missed a Feminist Rapper Friday because I didn't have anything scheduled (WHOOPS!) but had a few other video things scheduled... anyway. No more of that. Back to business. But not right now because I have to get ready for class.

Very soon I will be taking a 2-credit class called "Personal Defense for Women." I am so excited for the potential of living up to my childhood (/current) dreams of being like Xena and/or Buffy and/or Marshall Mary Shannon. Anyway, I hope there will be more to this class than learning to kick dudes in the nuts, but here's a nice little video compilation of ball-busting scenes from movies. Enjoy.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Last fall I wrote a piece for the F-Bomb called "Street Harassment and Sluts" inspired by my experiences in Ecuador, but that was/is certainly relevant to my life in the United States. Recently, one reader, Matt SS, posted his opinion on it in the comments section, and I want to clear up some confusion. So, Reader Confusion series #2 commence!

You guys are fucking clueless, Jesus Christ. Men aren’t afraid to go out at night because of rape, although it happens to us too, but we are certainly afraid of getting robbed. I live in St. Louis and sometimes we beat Detroit in the most dangerous city awards. If you see someone following you down the street for more than a block or two, you are scared shit-less. I was walking down a fucking major street and these guys came up to me and asked if I had a lighter or matches, and they kept asking and told me to turn out my pockets and asked me what was in my pockets and stuff. I ran. I thought they hit me, I felt something on my ear, and I ran, and they laughed, so maybe it wasn’t a fist, but a mosquito. Feminists talk all day about how we don’t know how women feel about being alone at night, or feeling like someone is following, and maybe we don’t. I know some girls who say they don’t get it, but then you turn around and pretend like men are never afraid. How the hell do you know? You aren’t men, you don’t read minds. We have black street gangs here, and if you are black especially, but sometimes white, and you wear the wrong color, you get shot. Period.
Sure, when I went to college I wasn’t really concerned about being robbed, because I was out at night with my friends, and there are often other people out that are students, but not every place in the world is a college campus.
Btw, in a 90% black school, as a white male, I get plenty of unwanted female attention, not because I’m [cute] really, but because black girls think its funny to hit white guys on the ass and stuff, so we experience sexual harassment, as well as fearing for our lives while walking alone at night. You don’t own fear.

No, women certainly do not own fear. Violence occurs across classes, races, sexualities, and genders. The post was talking exclusively about sexual harassment as it occurs to women (specifically, in my experience), and I think what I wrote last year bears repeating:

Sexual terrorism forces women to work around a”rape schedule.” We don’t go out too late. We make sure to bring a buddy. We stay in lighted areas. We don’t go certain places. We carry protection (mace, air horn, whistle… etc.) It’s healthy to be attracted to someone you see in public. It is healthy to be attracted to people period. What is unhealthy is that some people (mainly men) are taught that it is okay to vocalize such attraction in an unnerving and terrorizing way.

I was in not saying that men never experience harassment or random violence. On the contrary, many men do. About a year and a half ago a friend and I were walking to the subway from his house one night, and we talked about our experiences with harassment. He had experienced an elevated amount of harassment from people, especially in his then-neighborhood in South Philadelphia, because of his sexuality. Despite the fact that he got called a "fag" nearly every day, he said to me, "I don't think men will ever be able to understand the kind of fear that women experience walking alone at night."

"I think you might be able to come pretty close," I said.

Dear Matt SS, men are not the only people who get robbed. I too, live in a large city, 5th largest in the country, in a neighborhood that many people consider dangerous. I don't think there are many women or feminists or people in general who would deny that occasionally men fear for their safety. I think we can universally acknowledge that personal safety is something that concerns everyone regardless of gender, race, or class background.

By the way, just as a personal thing, I tend to be wary of gangs no matter the race of the gang members. Also, I'm quite certain there are gangs where I live, but personally, I have never been affected by them or been aware of their activities. Also, I think you might be racist.

I'm glad that you felt safe on your college campus, but college campuses actually aren't always an incredibly safe environment. Click here for some statistics on sexual assault on college campuses. This is a problem on every college campus. I attend a large, urban, state school where sexual assault is a problem, but it's also a problem on "safe" suburban campuses. A girl I knew from high school found out that her small liberal arts college on the east coast had the highest number of rapes on campus after her roommate was raped their freshman year.

Oh, Matty Matt, I am sorry that you get hit on as a joke. Unwanted attention is always unpleasant. However, I think fundamentally what makes the experiences of verbal sexual harassment different for a heterosexual man different from those of a woman (any sexuality) or gay man or transperson is that these groups do not hold societal power. If a guy turns his motorcycle around so that he park it next to me and talk to me while I'm waiting for the bus, I don't know how that interaction is going to go. Motorcycle dude in that situation did this in broad daylight, and turned out to be fairly polite in asking me out and took it well when I turned him down. But I can never know for certain how an interaction is going to go when I get called out on the street. In the daylight I feel a degree of safety, but that doesn't mean that I am absolutely safe. Fortunately I have never had a sexual harassment experience go beyond a conversation, but the fear of potential sexual violence is felt much more strongly by women and members of the LGBTQ community.

And I want to emphasize again, since it seems like you, poor, dear Matt, might be a racist, race isn't a necessary factor in harassment. I'm a white lady, and I've received unwanted attention with varying degrees of hostility from a wide range of races. White dudes too. Men are certainly not the only perpetrators of violence or sexual hostility, but the fact is that most people in the world live in cultures and communities in which the threat of sexual violence is felt very strongly by women and the LGBTQ community. This is a facet of personal safetyconcerns that men are also privy to. Being robbed or jumped is of course something that concerns men, and I know you can understand that kind of fear, but sexual violence is different because we live in a "rape culture," where women's bodies are fundamentally devalued and sexualized until they are devoid of personhood. Until sexual violence and harassment has ended, a large portion of the population (not just feminists!) is going to feel heightened levels of fear about their personal safety.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

During my first three semesters of college, I volunteered as a tutor for a program run by the Department of Human Services for middle and high school girls in Philadelphia. One of the most interesting things about this experience for me was that everyone was kind of uncomfortable talking about race. I was the only white person involved in the program--all the students, other tutors, and social workers were Black. That's not all that weird in Philadelphia, it's a diverse city. And in my experience doing other types of community outreach, I often am the only or one of the only white people who shows up. But for a really long time, no one, not even me, mentioned the fact that I am white. Which is, okay, not always a relevant fact. Like, "What does PEMDAS stand for and what is my race?" are not things that go together, but for people who have never talked about race and racism critically among diverse company, it can be an uncomfortable subject to broach. I think the first time I publicly acknowledged my whiteness was a couple months into the program when two of the girls were playing a Taylor Swift song on a cell phone. They were saying how they liked it and when I said I liked it too, one girl said, "You look like her!" (I do not.) So I said, "I do not look like her, you're just saying that because I'm white!" And we all cracked up. They thought that was the funniest thing, and it was!

Talking about race and racism doesn't have to be a serious, academic thing all the time. As an anthropology major and just as a person, it's something I talk about fairly often in a variety of contexts. So while I know that race (and gender) is this social construct meant to control and oppress--people still experience their lives through the lens of their race (or perceived race). The academic debate over whether or not race can/should be considered "real" is then nullified because saying "race isn't real" isn't going to stop some racist person from being racist.

Anyway, I'm getting to The Help. A lot of my friends, both Black and white, have read and seen the movie and/or read the book and have no complaints about it. However, if you own a computer and have an internet connection you use for something other than porn, you might have noticed that The Help is blowing up the blog world. (The Frisky, Feministing, Jezebel,What Tami Said, Womanist Musings, Entertainment Weekly... the list could go on but I'm sure you can google.) And it's not a lot of positive stuff.

But my UnIqUe take on this situation (or, I don't know if other people have come to this conclusion, perhaps and probably) is that we should use this opportunity to start talking about race critically. I mean "starting" in a immediate sense, like about The Help, because obviously people have been talking about race critically for quite some time. Which is not to say that people are talking about it enough. Especially the whiteys out there. The Help is undoubtedly problematic, but I think it does have some merit. It's a glossy fictional account of white women and their Black maids in 1962 (and the movie is even glossier), but implicit in writing about racial issues is that a conversation is being started. Here are some things from the movie/book that I think are important to talk about:

1.) What's not said explicitly in the book/movie but what I think is an incredibly important point is Deborah King's theory of multiple jeopardy. If you are unfamiliar with multiple jeopardy, first of all, I suggest you click that link and read about it, but in a nutshell, it's the idea that a person's identity is formed through multiple components, which all carry a certain amount of oppression and/or privilege. For example, a woman who is poor and Black faces oppression not only as a woman, but as a poor woman, a Black woman, and a poor Black woman. The character Celia is an interesting one I think because although she is rich through marriage, she grew up poor and is shunned by the bridge-playing Junior League ladies because she's "white trash" and possibly a man-stealer. So although she has the trappings of privilege (whiteness and affluence), she exists on the margins of that specific society because her identity is seen as "outside" that of the other women. Her unfamiliarity with the upper-crust scene influences her perceptions of propriety and as a result, she has a relationship with her Black maid, Minny, that is generally kind of unheard of for white women and their Black employees in 1962. Of course, multiple jeopardy exists even more strongly for Aibileen, Minny, and the other domestic workers in the movie.

2.) The public-private sphere is complicated. Aibileen's character has taken care of 17 children, only one of whom was her own.

As a nanny and domestic worker, she works in homes with families, in an area we usually consider "private." However, as a paid worker, the private sphere (the home) is then a public one. The conventions about the private sphere still exist (discretion, secrecy, repression) and are exacerbated by the public sphere conventions (segregation, racism). How much has this changed since 1962? I recommend reading Global Woman, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell-Hochschild.

3.) Why was The Help so popular as a book? Why is it that glossy stories about race relations make such blockbuster hits (as books and movies. See Avatar, The Blind Side, etc.)?

While feel-good movies like The Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds are based off actual, real people (and The Help is fiction), I think the reason we keep seeing movies/books like this is because this is a "comfortable" way to "talk" about race. White directors, writers, producers, and audiences can feel okay about inner city youth reading and writing and getting into college for two hours in a movie with a happy ending while they may have no idea about the actual, real-life statistics of drop-out rates, the low-quality of many city schools, and lack of opportunities for real students. The Help only barely scratches the surface of "the care deficit"--when women are paid to take care of other people's children and their own are left to be taken care of by relatives (or other people). This perhaps exists in the independent movie sphere, but I'm not aware of any recent movie that deals with race relations realistically and... I guess, "grittily." Do the Right Thing always comes to mind for me when talking about race and movies. Spike Lee spoke at my college a couple years ago so there were a bunch of free screenings of his movies prior to the event, and so my friend and I went to see Do the Right Thing and afterward had very little to say to each other than, "Holy shit." As many bloggers have brought up, The Help is problematic largely because it's another movie in which Black women play maids. As far as historical accuracy goes, of course there will be roles in some historical films in which Black women play maids, but the issue is that there aren't a lot of other options. White actors have a wide range of opportunities, including many roles that are "race neutral." The race of actors in rom-coms is usually unrelated to the clichéd banter, sex scenes, and the like, but unless the movie is written to have a Black cast and is then marketed as a Black rom-com or comedy or drama, the actors cast will usually be white. As audiences interested in greater racial equality, we should be demanding this! Hollywood is complacent in producing the same kinds of movies that generated $$ in the past, so until they start to notice that audiences respond positively to diverse casts, scripts, and actors, they're not going to do shit about it. Viola Davis should be in more movies, and not just playing a maid!

So did you/will you see The Help? I saw it tonight, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it's a shiny, compressed version of the book that is both entertaining and emotional. At the same time, I'm aware that as a white lady, I respond differently to it than say, Professor Melissa Harris-Perry.(Watch her interview on MSNBC about the movie, she's awesome! It's embedded in the link to Feministing earlier in this post.) I enjoyed myself, overall. But I want to point out, that I enjoy nearly all movies, social implications be damned. The Help is problematic, but it's not the problem. When we have a more just and equal society, stuff like The Help will be barely a blip on the radar.

Sociological Images talks about Smurfette and sexism.Okay, it's interesting, but at the same time, it's not the 80s and I don't expect anyone to care about the movie in about 2 days, so I feel like conversations about Smurfette are somewhat drawn out. I mean, there is a principle name after her. At the same time, this is why Geena Davis sends out e-mails every week about why children's programming sucks. One female character in a movie full of (blue) dudes? We can get a movie about blue magical creatures for children but not one with actually diverse characters? It's a sad ass world we live in.

Bitch Magazine reached their goal of 1,500 new subscribers to stay in print! I subscribed, did you? If you haven't, you still can and should because independent feminist media is important!

Does more gender equality mean more sex? One study suggests this. So, if gender equality does mean more sex, and people like sex, then that means that people will like gender equality. One can hope.

Michele Bachmann undoubtedly is awful in nearly every way possible, but Newsweek being sexist d-bags isn't acceptable either. As Feministing points out,

If you’re trying to illustrate the extremism of a politician’s views and find yourself relying on sexist, ableist tropes that have been used to discredit women since they first started fighting their way into the public sphere, just stop. The odds are good that Bachmann herself will make your point for you.

While everybody was making out in the hot tub at Alissa's party, Sadie dropped in some dog poop to break up the hormone parade. Which then gave everyone pink eye, which for some reason (ew, high schoolers are gross) then showed everyone at school that they were cool for having gone to the party. So even though Tamara just was in the hot tub and not making out with anyone, she has pink eye. Tamara loves this... perhaps a little too much.

PoPuLaRiTy!

Meanwhile, Ming is seriously PO'd that Jenna didn't clue her into the fact that she was hooking up with Matty, or that she could have gone to the party. Good! I was wondering in the previous episode where Ming was and thinking to myself that if they just let the Asian character be a no-personality friend... that would be bad. However, Ming is a really awesome character and good at calling Jenna on her BS in this episode, but MTV is going way too stereotypical (and racist) on Ming's family. "Tiger Moms" exist, but that's not every single Asian parent, and the show is just riding off people's assumptions about Asian teens and their home lives.

At this point, Jenna realizes that DTR is an issue ("OMG I need to stop thinking in abbreviations."), and vows not to hook up with Matty until she establishes something. Jenna's friends point out that she better establish something soon, because that night's bonfire is teenage hookup central (and is actually where Jenna was conceived), and Jenna doesn't want another situation like at Alissa's party. However, when she actually brings it up, Matty gives her the whole, "I think you're great and awesome and are so cool because you're different and yourself but I don't want to be in a relationship." Which translates to "I'm embarrassed to be seen with you because I'm a jock and an armpit sniffer." Jenna doesn't realize the translation though... hence the point of the show.

"I just want to be popular, and you are not. But let's keep having sex."

(Note, not an actual quote from the show.)

Oh, also, Tamara douses Sadie with a hose and reveals her fake pink eye! So sad... but also, good for you, Tamara. Knock that girl down a peg.

And phew, this time Jenna calls Ming and tells her about her DTR fail before she tells Tamara. I'm glad for an actual show where the characters have friends, since you know... most people have friends and I don't understand why TV writers continue to value relationship-screen time over friend-screen time. Happy medium, people! Friends talk about their relationships (and other stuff)! Since the show still has a ways to go, hopefully the racist stuff will be nixed because otherwise, I love Awkward.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

So, it's pretty clear that Matty likes Jenna, even if that isn't clear to anyone else. Like Jenna. Or maybe even Matty. What is clear is that Jenna is way more into him than he is into her. I just read Kathleen Bogle's book Hooking Up (which is awesome--so interesting. I know this--I'm in college, but I still learned a lot) so I was framing a lot of this episode in reference to what Bogle talks about in her study of college hookup culture. For whatever reasons, wanting to be free, desire to stay popular, wariness of Jenna's social standing--Matty will not commit. The scene where they're having sex in the playhouse and Jenna asks him a bunch of questions rapid-fire to attempt to get to know him is so funny! God, I love this show. ("Elipses are the sluts of punctuation.")

So the major drama of this episode is that Jenna is interested in defining the relationship ("DTR"... what show/movie is that from? I'm blanking.) but doesn't know how to bring it up. She wrestles with the fact that they're having all this sex but don't have a real emotional connection (which reminded me of day one of sex ed in high school where we had to talk about levels of emotional and physical intimacy before we could put condoms on replica penises). Matty tells Jenna she should go to Alissa's house for a party that weekend (which Jenna's mom hilariously gets so pumped about--possibly a reference to the future of MTV's future Teen Mom stars?) so she and Tamara show up, to an unhappy Sadie and Alissa.

Okay, so I was the kid in high school who watched a lot of movies and read a lot of non-fiction, so I did not actually go to parties that were not of the birthday-sleepover variety, so I don't actually know how high school parties go. In any case, I think the kick-off in this episode was funny and accurate in a lot of ways. High school/college students tend to feel like alcohol gives them free range to do ridiculous stuff, and while it may psychologically, it looks ridiculous to other people. Both Sadie and Alissa are threatened by Jenna--Sadie because she's into Matty and Alissa because she's paranoid about her relationship with Jake. See picture below. (Hilarious! This show kills me.)

While Tamara is having the time of her life snapping cell phone pics in an attempt to gain popularity (the satire in this show is so on) Jenna sums up her sucky time: "I was putting up with a bunch of assicles just to hang with Matty." And Matty just ignores her. Which is where a sane person would hand her a copy of He's Just Not That into You, or perhaps a copy of Hooking Up, but emotions are hard, dude. And even more complex because Sadie is trying really hard to to get with Matty too. And Sadie has to deal with her dumb friend Alissa fat-shaming her all over the place.

So essentially Jenna is the odd girl out, and even more out when she sees another girl all over Matty in the hot tub. Damn. Meanwhile, Alissa is conflicted because she feels Jake pulling away (because she's nuts) but doesn't want to give up her abstinence vow. Sadie tells her the loophole is anal sex... which fortunately Jake declines when she drunkenly offers it as their 3-month anniversary present. He finds Jenna crying outside and offers to drive her home. And while they're talking Jenna comes to the realization that she knows Jake a lot better than she knows Matty, despite all the sexing. I like that there's no judgement on this show--Jenna is not a "slut" for having sex, she simply has it and she does so safely (and doesn't always enjoy it, thank god that perspective is in there.You don't just turn into Samantha Jones as soon as you become sexually active.) But it is bringing up a important point: that emotional and physical intimacy are connected and depending on what you want, you maybe shouldn't put up with someone else's crap if they're not on your level.

Okay, so to make this quick because there's so much TV I have to (yes, have to) catch up on, in episode nine it's Bay and Daphne's birthdays! So the Kennishes buy them cars! This annoys Regina, who's still on the outs, and eventually her mom and Melody talk her into being less of a doormat, and she begins her apology train ride. Bay and Emmett's relationship heats up, but it's still a secret from Daphne. Understandable, but obviously this can't end well. Anyway, blah blah, Regina comes back, family birthday, Bay is about to tell Daphne that she and Emmett are going out--ANDDDD... Daphne comes to the realization that she likes Emmett. Nooo! All hope of Daphne and Bay becoming friends anytime soon is dashed.

In the mid-season finale, right off the bat, Bay meets an accented stranger at her art show who is none other than... Angelo Sorrento! Her absentee-bio-dad! Oh, what? He read a newspaper article about the switch and showed up to find his rightful daughter. Damn, man. That's a lot to process for a teen girl whose identity is such an unknown.

Meanwhile, Daphne finds out that Bay and Emmett are together and she is not happy about it. She gives him all the same crap he gave her about Liam, but more, since she has some beef with Bay. Eventually she gets up the guts to tell him that he likes her and Emmett basically tells her to shut up. Then they kiss. But then he tells her he's with Bay, so gedoutta here.

Wilke gets Toby and him into this big music festival, but only because he pushes Emmett's selling point: having a deaf drummer is interesting. So they begin to work on Emmett, who really doesn't want to hang out with them. They're the worst (besides John) at being accommodating to lip-readers, so duh! I wouldn't want to hang out with them either and I can hear.

Angelo shows up at the Kennishes, since Bay invited him, but Catherine and John are threatened, obviously. Especially John. And Catherine gives this great speech about having to deal with being a mom to two girls, competing with another mom, and then getting lost in the way... and so now she's glad that John can start to understand what she's been going through.

Regina is not happy about Angelo being back, but it's unclear why... at least at first. Seems like he might be a skeezey con man. But we don't know enough from this episode! Ugh, ABC Family has the weirdest season breaks and timing... whatever. It will probably start back up right as I have important papers to write, as that is how things usually work.

In one scene with Bay, Wilke and Toby talking really fast, the perspective shifts to Emmett's who can't really keep up with the lip-syncing. Since he's also confused about Daphne, he picks a fight with Bay, and then breaks up with her because he is irritated about the communication barrier. However, Toby goes to talk to him, and tells him that Bay actually really does like him, and that Emmett should give her another chance.

And he does. He apologizes and tells Bay that even though there is the communication barrier, when they're together he's not thinking about that she's hearing or that she's not deaf, she's just Bay. Awwwwww. Overwhelmingly, because I am a fan of Switched at Birth on facebook, I think the shippers are fans of Emmett and Bay. They are really cute together. And then Emmett talks! Whoa! Devotion! They're back together.

But at the end of the episode, as Emmett rides away with Wilke and Toby to go play in the music fest, Bay asks Daphne how she's doing. And Daphne tells her that she gave up on a guy (Liam) once because Bay told her to, and she's going to keep trying to get with Emmett. Whoa, man. And Wilke says he's into Daphne. There's going to be some serious dramz in the second half of the season, and I'm excited to see a pluckier side of Daphne. Although... Bay and Daphne probably won't be friends for awhile. (Side note: does Bay have friends? It appears she does not. Daphne has Emmett and that's it.)

As a bonus, since I am watching Beauty and the Beast on the Disney Channel while I'm writing this, here's a clip about a girl who learned ASL to make a friend! Adorable! Also, it's probably no coincidence, ABC Family and the Disney Channel are related to one another, but I'm really happy about this media attention to ASL! Let's all support bilingualism!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

I watched the most recent episode of Switched at Birth on Tuesday and it was awesome! But I am travelling and moving, so I will recap it next week, along with the summer finale, and the episode of Awkward from Tuesday. I haven't forgotten, I just don't have time!